The Vampire Games: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance (2 page)

I
woke
up to find myself alone in an unfamiliar bed.

I sat up. I was no longer wearing the jeans and t-shirt that had been my outfit for my last day of high school, picked so carefully out of my closet in the hopes of making a good, lasting memory among my friends. Now I was wearing white. It almost looked like a wedding dress. It must have cost more than everything I owned.

Someone had changed my clothes while I was unconscious.

It was impossible not to imagine what that must have entailed. All those black-clad men handling my limp body, stripping me of my shirt, my jeans, my shoes. I pulled on the neck of the dress to look down. My bra and underwear were still on. That didn’t make me feel much better.

Suppressing a shiver, I eased out of the bed to inspect my surroundings.

The bedroom was cave-like, though much smaller than the one with all the bodies—and there were no sleeping people strapped to the walls, thankfully.

For the moment, I was alone.

I didn’t seem to be in a prison, though. The bed and dresser were far too ordinary for that. Someone had even left a crystal vase on top of the dresser cradling a half-dozen white roses.

My fingertips slid over the petals of one of the flowers. It was velvety-soft.

Someone had picked those flowers fresh.

My hand slid down the stem. A red ribbon bundled the flowers together, tied in a neat bow that reminded me of a heart.

Flowers, ribbon, vase.

These flowers had been left just for me.

I was sure of it.

“Ouch!”

I had been careless and a thorn had bitten me. I sucked my thumb into my mouth and tasted blood. The coppery flavor was a reminder of the very real danger I was facing.

This was not an unusual hotel.

These flowers were not a romantic gesture.

I had been abducted with the blessing of my parents, and Marc was here, too.

I paced the walls, looking for a way out. There were only two doors. One led into a bathroom, and the other was locked. There was a vent, which was probably how I had air in…whatever this place was, but there were no windows.

Day or night, summer or winter, I had no idea. There could have been a nuclear apocalypse outside and I wouldn’t have known.

I was still deep under the mountain.

“Great,” I said to myself. I wanted to sound tough, but it came out wavering.

A soft, golden light flickered on when I moved into the bathroom. Motion-activated. I twitched in response, unable to shake the feeling that I had been seen by inhuman eyes.

The bulb illuminated a large tub, a toilet, and a sink, but no mirror. There hadn’t been a mirror in the bedroom, either, so there was no good way to check how I looked.

What I could see of my body wasn’t too bruised besides my arms where the strange men had been holding me, and I wasn’t bleeding. When I patted my face, it wasn’t painful or tender. It seemed like I was okay.

Well. As okay as I could be, given the circumstances.

I washed my bleeding hand in the sink. The blood continued to flow freely.

What were the odds that a creepy cave-bedroom would have Band-Aids?

I was about to search under the sink when I heard a
click
in the other room. I rushed to the bathroom door, nearly tripping over the hem of my skirt, to see what was happening.

A man slipped into the bedroom, ghosting silently from the door. The golden bathroom light spilled over his pallid skin.

It was him.

The boy who saved me.

Was it possible that he had collected those roses for me, too?

He was placing a tray next to the bed, not looking at me when I walked in. I was pretty sure he knew I was there, anyway. Every time his gaze seemed almost pointed in my direction, it would skip ahead or move back. He was making a physical effort not to look my way.

His brow was furrowed, hard to see under the shadow of his dark face, but he definitely looked troubled.

I lingered outside the bathroom door, injured hand cradled against my chest. My heart beat wildly within my ribcage.

Though our eyes didn’t meet, there was a connection. The air between us had weight and texture.

Gravity wanted to compel me toward him.

But fear held me back.

I hadn’t been able to fight back against those men in the black suits, who vastly overwhelmed me with their strength. This guy had defeated all of them. He had beaten them down and saved me, even though he looked like he couldn’t have been any older than me.

If he decided that I needed to die, I would be helpless.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely above a breathy whisper.

The man’s eyes remained fixed to the tray that he had brought inside. “It doesn’t matter.”

I was clinging to the doorframe like it could save me.
Wouldn’t that be nice?

I took a breath and forced myself to release the door. The step I took toward him was simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult step I had ever taken. “You have to let me go. I…I’m graduating from school, and…”

“I can’t.”

Can’t, or won’t?
“Please. My mom, she might be in—”

“I brought you some food.” He pushed the tray forward. The plate was covered by a silver dome so I couldn’t see what was inside.

For the first time since he came inside, he met my eyes. His eyes were as captivating and intense as ever. I couldn’t look away.

But he could. He ducked his head.

Without the distraction of his bright gaze, I could study the carved lines of his face, the perfection of his pale skin. It looked like he’d been trapped in this cave system for a long time. There was no hint of tan on him.

I’d imagined earlier that Marc had been carved by the Greek gods. By contrast, this boy had been imagined in the fever dreams of Lucifer, the Morning Star. He was sinful perfection, masculine beauty untouched by age.

He wore low-slung jeans and a snug black t-shirt that hugged his lean muscles. He looked like a guy who could have attended my high school, or maybe the local community college.

Yet fate had brought him down into these caves, just as I had been.

But he’d escaped, just as I hoped to do.

And then he had saved me.

I was transfixed by the shape of his lips and the muscle flexing in front of his ear when he clenched his teeth. I wondered if he realized how the tension emphasized his jawline. There was no way he could realize how painfully handsome he was. Standing across from him, I felt plainer than ever, the dirt beneath a blossoming plum tree, dry and dusty.

Why would he have saved me?

The spell was only broken when he opened his jacket and pulled out a sunflower, rumpled but almost painfully bright next to everything in the room. He placed it on the tray and backed away without lifting his head.

That pathetic, cheerful sunflower made my heart ache.

Yes. He must have brought me the roses, too.

My new captor was trying to brighten my gloomy hideout.

“Thank you,” I said.

He didn’t reply.

I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, battling myself for words. I had so many questions.

But only one that I couldn’t resist asking.

“Why do you keep avoiding my eyes?”

He gave a low chuckle and raked a hand through his hair. His bangs flopped over his forehead again. “You know when you’ve been in darkness all night and step outside to see dawn for the first time? It hurts to look into the light.”

There was a lump in my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but it felt like trying to swallow razors. “Are you saying that it hurts to look at me?”

“I’m saying you’re the first sunlight I’ve glimpsed in a long time,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat.

I reached for the sunflower.

He stiffened. “What happened to you?”

I realized he was looking at my thumb. It had stopped bleeding, but there was still a crimson pinpoint where I had stabbed myself with the thorn.

“The roses.” I withdrew my hand self-consciously.

His eyes tracked the motion of my thumb as if he couldn’t look away from it. Nostrils flaring, he smelled the air.

He ripped the crystal vase off of the dresser and moved for the exit. But when he drew nearest to me, he hesitated, missing a step.

Still, he was staring at my hand.

I had the strange urge to offer it to him. For what, I wasn’t sure. I doubted that he had bandages, though I momentarily entertained the ridiculous thought that he’d be able to give me superhero Band-Aids like the school nurse.

Would his skin feel as smooth as it looked?

“Don’t take the roses away,” I said softly. “I like them.”

His eyes flicked from my hand to my lips.

“I’ll be back for you,” he said. His eyes were shaded underneath, almost bruised. He was painfully beautiful for a man. Certainly even more beautiful than Marc.

“Marc,” I said suddenly. The frown on the man’s face increased, but I charged ahead. “He goes to my school. I saw him, and he was trapped…
there
. Can’t you help him?”

“Forget about him,” the man said roughly. “Forget about everything.”

And with that, he stalked out of the room.

He took my roses with him.

Considering I had only known that those roses existed for the space of mere breathless minutes, it ached to lose them so abruptly. It ached worse than losing my parents.

At least I had the sunflower.

I picked it up, stroking the rumpled petals. It was as beautiful to me as those pristine white roses. Maybe more beautiful.

Now that Marc had come to mind, I couldn’t get him out of it.

I felt strangely safe in this cave. Far safer than I had felt in the custody of the black-suited men.

But Marc wasn’t safe.

It was one thing to be scared and take time to figure out a plan for myself. It was something else to abandon him—and other people—there to die.

I ate the food on the tray. I had no idea when my last meal had been, and I didn’t know when my next one could come. The food seemed like something I could get at the corner store, a slightly stale sandwich and a bag of chips, but I felt better eating it. It gave me strength.

Lifting the sunflower to my nose, I inhaled its earthy scent.

What had that man smelled when he sniffed the air?

My blood
.

The thought rose unbidden to the surface of my mind.

I pushed it away.

He had locked the door before leaving, so the vent by the wall seemed my best option for escape. I dug my fingernails underneath the cover to loosen it.

I took one last look at the sunflower, sitting on the now-empty tray, and crawled into the vent.

I
had never tried
to crawl through an air duct before, and I couldn’t say that I liked it much. The duct trembled under my knees as I crawled. It also felt incredibly small. If adrenaline hadn’t been pumping through my veins, I don’t know that I could have gotten past the first couple feet without turning around.

I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t stop.

Marc was out there. Going back simply was not an option.

I slid my hands and knees along the metal slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible. The air was surprisingly warm, in much the same way that the water from the faucet had been warm.

When I came across a juncture, I took a right turn. And I took another right at the next juncture.

That was what I used to do in the corn maze every autumn. Follow the right wall. It was a reliable path to the exit.

Not this time.

I wasn’t in a maze. The labyrinth I’d found myself in was far more convoluted than the one built at the Gardner farm, or even than the one that had housed the Minotaur of myth.

It didn’t take long before I became completely lost.

After a few more turns, I couldn’t have found my way back to the room I’d been trapped in if I’d wanted to.

Still, I kept going.

Forward. Ever forward.

I had no other choice.

An indeterminate amount of time passed, thumping around in the vents like that. Eventually, light appeared ahead.

Hope fluttered weakly in my stomach.

Squeezing through the duct, I found myself at a vent looking into another cavernous room. I pressed my face against it, searching for the place where Marc was being held.

I saw gears grinding, helmeted people holding bright torches, conveyer belts with parts on them—but I didn’t see Marc.

People spoke softly. I could barely hear them.

I shuffled deeper into the ductwork.

It wasn’t long before I heard voices again. “…drained another set of useless humans.”

Stiffening, I paused to listen.

“They need to stop going through them so fast,” another voice said. “The value goes down if we flood the market, and we get less long-term value on the humans if they’re disposed of so quickly.”

“That’s what I said, but you know these management types. It’s all short-term. ‘How can we boost our profits to make ourselves look good now?’ That kind of thing.”

They were talking about humans as though they were some kind of product. It made sense in a perverse way. All the rooms I’d seen, aside from my temporary bedroom, had looked like a factory.

I had an uneasy suspicion about what kind of product that factory might churn out.

My body trembled so hard I had to crawl away. It wouldn’t do me any good if I got caught because I rattled the ducts right by the ears of my enemy.

I crawled in a haze for a little while after that. Right turns, left turns—I stopped keeping track.

Once I got to a place that seemed further away from anyone who could possibly hear, I curled up and breathed until my heart stopped pounding in my ears.

Those people wanted to drain my blood, and they wouldn’t even use my name when they did it. They could kill me without ever acknowledging me as more than…than a
product
. How many had they killed already? How many had died since I even got here?

I had to find the room.

Marc. He needed me.

I started crawling again.

I
t was
at least a couple more hours before I found the large chamber with all the sleeping people. I had almost given up on the hope that I would ever find it, but I did by a merciful stroke of luck.

What tipped me off was the sound of quiet groaning. It sounded like there were people half-awake and hurting nearby.

I followed those chilling moans to a place where the ductwork widened and found a vent.

The cave seemed emptier and less bustling than before. I didn’t see the men in the black suits. All I could see was concrete floor and a lot of people sleeping against the walls.

I couldn’t be sure I was alone, but this was probably as good a time as any to try.

“Marc,” I whispered to myself.

I was doing this for Marc.

It was much easier getting the vent cover off this time. I pulled it into the duct and set it down quietly before lowering myself onto the catwalk below.

My bare feet thudded against the catwalk.

I froze, looking at the humans suspended on the walls surrounding me. Marc had been alert enough to say my name. What if someone else was awake, and they called for help?

But everyone around me had their eyes closed. The only noises they made were those pained breaths.

Nobody was awake enough to call out.

My heart ached for them. If I hadn’t been rescued by the mysterious guy with the blue eyes, I would have been up there too. I would have been asleep, unable to do more than groan.

Unable to save Marc.

Why had I been so lucky?

No, not lucky.

Chosen.

The beautiful blue-eyed boy had chosen
me
. Boring Bianka. Luck had nothing to do with it.

It was critical that I took advantage of that strange twist of mercy to save the others.

I tried to orient myself in the room. It was so big, with so many people I didn’t know pinned to the walls, that I was initially overwhelmed by the task.

But then I spotted the platform where I had fought earlier.

Marc was over there.

It was a couple hundred feet away. Too far from the vent I had left open. Even so, I reached it in a short minute of jogging. My muscles were sore from my struggle against the guards in the black suits, but it didn’t slow me down.

Once I reached the platform, I didn’t know what to do. The scissor lift would be noisy in the silence. Its engine was rusty and old. I remembered how it had groaned when activated. As soon as I activated it to reach Marc, we’d surely have a hundred men in black suits on our tails.

Marc and I would have to run if we hoped to escape.

Would running be enough, though? If those men were supernaturally strong, wouldn’t they also have supernatural speed?

I climbed into the scissor lift and found the controls, but my hands were motionless on the buttons, reluctant to press.

My eyes tracked up the wall to Marc.

He was asleep.

Would he be in running condition when I awakened him?

Would I even be capable of rousing him?

I have to try
.

With my eyes closed, I pushed the button to raise the scissor lift.

It whirred and creaked and jolted, and I had to grab the railing more than once to keep from falling to my knees.

If there was anyone close enough to hear, I was finished.

The people hanging around me didn’t even twitch.

Within seconds, I was on Marc’s level.

He looked so much worse up close, like he was…well, like he was dying. But I didn’t see any injuries on his body. He was still wearing the clothes from his last day of school, just as I had been.

“Marc,” I whispered hoarsely. He didn’t seem to hear me. I patted his face, and his eyelids fluttered. “Marc, listen to me. You need to wake up.”

His eyelids fluttered again.

I searched the scissor lift for something that would wake him up and spotted an IV running into Marc’s sleeve. It was filled with a clear fluid.

As I’d feared, they must have been drugging him.

I gritted my teeth and removed the drip as carefully as I could. I winced the whole time as the needle slid out of his skin. I wasn’t a doctor or anything, so I didn’t know if I was hurting him. But the same sedation that kept him from hearing my voice seemed to keep him from feeling the tug on his arm.

Clear droplets shivered on the tip of the needle. I let the tube dangle.

“Marc,” I whispered again, cupping his cheeks in my hands. “Marc, wake up.”

Finally, his eyes opened.

Those big brown eyes that had glinted at me from across so many classrooms. Those eyes that I had gazed into while practicing portrait drawing in art class.

Relief flooded my veins like a different kind of drug.

“Bianka?” he asked.

I pressed my forehead to his, clutching his shoulders. “Marc.
Marc
.”

We gazed at each other from inches away, breath mingling.

I only allowed myself a moment to rejoice. One moment.

Then I loosened the straps on his arms and legs. “We have to get out of here. Can you move?”

“I’ll try,” Marc said.

With my help, he got his legs over the railing into the scissor lift. All his movements were sluggish, but he was bending his knees and flexing his hands. I tried not to be disappointed. Any movement was better than none. I had just been hoping that he would be much faster.

Finally, he collapsed onto the scissor lift.

His eyes opened wide.

He screamed at the sight of everyone pinned to the walls.

I clapped my hands over my ears, like that would keep anyone from finding us. Marc’s fists flailed. He struck me when I tried to help him stand. “Stop it!” I said. “I’m trying—no, you’re hurting me, stop!” I still don’t think he heard me at that point. And I couldn’t fight him and get us both out, so I said, desperate, “Marc, look at me. It’s Bianka.
I need you
.”

His breathing slowed. “Bianka? That’s you?” He spoke much more clearly this time.

“Yes. It’s me.” I went back to the controls on the scissor lift. “We need to get out of here.”

That was, of course, when the alarms started.

I slammed the “down” button on the catwalk. It glided to the platform.

A nearby set of double doors opened. Men stood in the archway. They wore black suits.

“Hide,” I hissed to Marc, pulling him behind the platform.

We ducked.

Marc leaned heavily against me, still incapable of standing. I eased him to the floor and held my breath, praying we wouldn’t be spotted in the shadows behind the platform.

But then I heard loud sniffing. The men were scenting the air, like they were bloodhounds or something.

Someone yelled. “Over there!”

They could smell us.

“Run!” I screamed, and I pulled Marc behind me as we dashed across the cavern.

There was nowhere to go except that road—that one-lane path that could take us back to our homes, to civilization, to the parents who had told me I needed to go with the men in black suits.

It had been such a long road. I would never be able to escape on foot, even if Marc hadn’t been slowing me.

We had to make it out.
We had to.

The alarms cut off suddenly.

A dozen black-suited men stepped in front of us, broad-shouldered, pale, and angry.

We were surrounded.

“Bianka,” Marc whispered in my ear as they closed in.

I squeezed his hand and waited for them to kill us.

At least I wouldn’t die alone.